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Learning to Fly

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Flight has always been a fascination for me. My father was an aeronautical engineer who learned the trade on the cusp of World War 2 and pursued it through the heyday of the United States space program greatness, instrumental in the development of the Atlas booster that first thrust America in to space. He worked with the giants of the industry, among them Werner Von Braun, J.S. McDonnell and others. So, from an early age, flight fascinated me. Summertimes, I hung out in the library and read accounts of the early aviators, Langley, Lilienthal, Orville and Wilber Wright. It wasn't powered flight that captivated me, but rather gliding on the wind. Later I would sail the oceans on the wind in what I realize now was the same fascination. I would dream then of flying silently above the world, buoyed along by another fluid medium. There was this gully behind where we lived filled with old fallow fields on the other side that ended up against the property of my best friend, Stev...
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Gonzales Texas: Lake Wood Park 09/04/2020

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  5 September 2019 We left Houston in what was a general bug out / shakedown for the Blacktop Conestoga during the time that Hurricane Laura was bearing down on the Upper Gulf Coast region (08/27). We had just finished the general refit and hurriedly tossed together the most important items (including 4 brand new 10 ply Goodyear Endurance tires)  into the truck and headed west towards Gonzales, Texas where we have camped before at Palmetto State Park. We knew in advance that Palmetto was booked, but we also knew there are many other small and lesser known parks in the area. Besides, we are well suited to boondocking so with little worry we left Houston amid it's traffic and seething mass of humanity for literally, greener pastures.  On the way we ran into one lone rain shower from a feeder band of the hurricane which apparently didn't get the notice that the storm had headed east and north into Louisiana.  We drove west on Alt-90, through Shiner (where Shiner beer is...
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Homegrown Tostones

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 In our backyard here at Dumas is a pretty heavy stand of buro plantains. When we first arrived here the place was overgrown and the jungle, as we call it, was a tangle of poison oak vine, mora Mulberries and   banana trees. Because the winter wasn't cold, most of them survived and after some spring pruning look pretty good. We use the leaves as hojas for tamales veracruzanos and to wrap pork for pibil style Yucatan pork.... We finally got a couple of plants to start fruiting, but the "bunches" really just consist of a few scattered bananas. Today, I noticed that one of the bunches is starting to ripen ever so slightly, going from dark green to a few shades lighter and so I decided to pluck one off and turn it into tostones (fried plantain wafers). We used to own and operate a food truck, before we became nomadic. Modern Alchemy produced foods of the cultures we love and have learned from. We borrowed elements from Mexican, Asian, Indian and Caribbean cultures. One o...
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Multiple Storms in the Gulf: Push to Complete

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  August 21 With the completion of the backsplash, comes the essential completion of the interior refit of the Blacktop Conestoga. Late this afternoon / early this evening I'm going to back the F-150 up and connect the electrical, wire in the new LED tail lights and the 5 assorted running lights and verify their proper operation.  I will also air and verify the 4 existing tires are ready to go as well. We have 4 band new tires in the storage stall to be installed I will try and make arrangements at the Goodyear near here to get them changed out ASAP.  Behind the scenes we've organized and trimmed our on board inventory and so that will be added back in as well. Canned food inventories, clothes, cooking stuff and whatever else is necessary to gonzo camp.  There are currently 2 tropical systems that are likely to have an impact on gulf region early next week. Presently, one could likely score a direct or near direct hit on the fetid swamp that's Houston. Lots of chatte...
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Blacktop Conestoga Refit Summary 20 August

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  Update August 20, 2020 I have decided to do periodic updates pertaining to the actual physical refit of our 1994 22' Wilderness travel trailer so that there is a historical record of it and not just some vague referenced info as I meander from subject to subject.  If you got this far you can actually just follow these updates for that sort of concrete stuff. I'll post in this font and in a fairly concise manner on the assumption that it's of any interest to anybody...  The first task we did was to power wash the outside after we took it out of storage after 6 months indoors An electric tongue jack was installed instead of the broken original hand crank model.  Next, we removed all of the carpet and old vinyl. It was a sheet vinyl, mostly stapled in place and was fairly easy to remove. We also removed the window treatments, doors and everything else that would have made painting overly difficult.  We cleaned all of the surfaces with simple green cleaner and the...
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The Ditch

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  I swore that I'd never do another summer in Texas It's currently 97 degrees in Houston. In the swamp, it feels like it's 109. It is not possible to work or even be outside for periods longer than about an hour at a time.  It's that bad.  The past several weeks there has been quite a bit of rain, first from hurricane Hanna which cut through the Corpus area before ripping the Valley a new one, then from an early season front that crashed in to the moisture heavy hot and humid Texas air.  It's best to try and accomplish anything outside very early in the morning or late in the afternoon / evening. Sometimes, I go through several changes of over-sweat stained clothes in the course of the day. I try not to think about it, it's better to just deal with it.  Last night I finally tackled the disgusting ditch that is supposed to drain this area into another drainage canal. It is of course an exercise in futility be...
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King Salmon on the Fly

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In 2017   Dee and   traveled to Alaska to work in an upper end lodge, cooking for guests during the summer. I had not bn home for almost 40 years and my beloved had never been. So we accepted the position and on a hot summer day in late may in Texas we flew north and landed in Anchorage to mid 50's and rain.  The lodge is situated on the confluence of the Kenai and Moose Rivers, and is an absolute salmon hotspot during the season.  About 3 days after we arrived, I purchased a temporary fishing license and Dee and I strolled down the bluff to the river. Our friend, Tim was working the beach for the guests and hooked me up with the right stuff. I waded out and fired a couple of casts to get used to the weighted streamer. On the third cast the fly abruptly stopped and I reared back on the 9 weight.  The big fish thrusted his tail a couple of times and the fight was on. A series of fortunate events and some time later he was at the net. We estimated the fish ar...
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